You must not worship or serve them, for I, the Lord your God, am a jealous God. I punish the sons, grandsons, and great-grandsons for the sin of the fathers who reject me,

You must not make use of the name of the Lord your God for worthless purposes, for the Lord will not exonerate anyone who abuses his name that way.

but the seventh day is the Sabbath of the Lord your God. On that day you must not do any work, you, your son, your daughter, your male slave, your female slave, your ox, your donkey, any other animal, or the foreigner who lives with you, so that your male and female slaves, like yourself, may have rest.

You must not murder.

You must not commit adultery.

You must not steal.

You must not offer false testimony against another.

You must not desire another man's wife, nor should you crave his house, his field, his male and female servants, his ox, his donkey, or anything else he owns."

You must love the Lord your God with your whole mind, your whole being, and all your strength.

These words I am commanding you today must be kept in mind,

and you must teach them to your children and speak of them as you sit in your house, as you walk along the road, as you lie down, and as you get up.

You must revere the Lord your God, serve him, and take oaths using only his name.

You must not go after other gods, those of the surrounding peoples,

You must not put the Lord your God to the test as you did at Massah.

you must say to them, "We were Pharaoh's slaves in Egypt, but the Lord brought us out of Egypt in a powerful way.

and he delivers them over to you and you attack them, you must utterly annihilate them. Make no treaty with them and show them no mercy!

You must not intermarry with them. Do not give your daughters to their sons or take their daughters for your sons,

Instead, this is what you must do to them: You must tear down their altars, shatter their sacred pillars, cut down their sacred Asherah poles, and burn up their idols.

You must destroy all the people whom the Lord your God is about to deliver over to you; you must not pity them or worship their gods, for that will be a snare to you.

you must not fear them. You must carefully recall what the Lord your God did to Pharaoh and all Egypt,

You must not tremble in their presence, for the Lord your God, who is present among you, is a great and awesome God.

You must burn the images of their gods, but do not covet the silver and gold that covers them so much that you take it for yourself and thus become ensnared by it; for it is abhorrent to the Lord your God.

You must not bring any abhorrent thing into your house and thereby become an object of divine wrath along with it. You must absolutely detest and abhor it, for it is an object of divine wrath.

You must keep carefully all these commandments I am giving you today so that you may live, increase in number, and go in and occupy the land that the Lord promised to your ancestors.

So you must keep his commandments, live according to his standards, and revere him.

You must remember the Lord your God, for he is the one who gives ability to get wealth; if you do this he will confirm his covenant that he made by oath to your ancestors, even as he has to this day.

I will write on the tablets the same words that were on the first tablets you broke, and you must put them into the ark."

So you must love the resident foreigner because you were foreigners in the land of Egypt.

You must love the Lord your God and do what he requires; keep his statutes, ordinances, and commandments at all times.

When the Lord your God brings you into the land you are to possess, you must pronounce the blessing on Mount Gerizim and the curse on Mount Ebal.

These are the statutes and ordinances you must be careful to obey as long as you live in the land the Lord, the God of your ancestors, has given you to possess.

You must by all means destroy all the places where the nations you are about to dispossess worship their gods -- on the high mountains and hills and under every leafy tree.

You must tear down their altars, shatter their sacred pillars, burn up their sacred Asherah poles, and cut down the images of their gods; you must eliminate their very memory from that place.

You must not worship the Lord your God the way they worship.

But you must seek only the place he chooses from all your tribes to establish his name as his place of residence, and you must go there.

And there you must take your burnt offerings, your sacrifices, your tithes, the personal offerings you have prepared, your votive offerings, your freewill offerings, and the firstborn of your herds and flocks.

Both you and your families must feast there before the Lord your God and rejoice in all the output of your labor with which he has blessed you.

You must not do like we are doing here today, with everyone doing what seems best to him,

Then you must come to the place the Lord your God chooses for his name to reside, bringing everything I am commanding you -- your burnt offerings, sacrifices, tithes, the personal offerings you have prepared, and all your choice votive offerings which you devote to him.

However, you must not eat blood -- pour it out on the ground like water.

However, by no means eat the blood, for the blood is life itself -- you must not eat the life with the meat!

You must not eat it! You must pour it out on the ground like water.

You must not eat it so that it may go well with you and your children after you; you will be doing what is right in the Lord's sight.

Only the holy things and votive offerings that belong to you, you must pick up and take to the place the Lord will choose.

You must offer your burnt offerings, both meat and blood, on the altar of the Lord your God; the blood of your other sacrifices you must pour out on his altar while you eat the meat.

You must not worship the Lord your God the way they do! For everything that is abhorrent to him, everything he hates, they have done when worshiping their gods. They even burn up their sons and daughters before their gods!

You must be careful to do everything I am commanding you. Do not add to it or subtract from it!

You must not listen to the words of that prophet or dreamer, for the Lord your God will be testing you to see if you love him with all your mind and being.

You must follow the Lord your God and revere only him; and you must observe his commandments, obey him, serve him, and remain loyal to him.

As for that prophet or dreamer, he must be executed because he encouraged rebellion against the Lord your God who brought you from the land of Egypt, redeeming you from that place of slavery, and because he has tried to entice you from the way the Lord your God has commanded you to go. In this way you must purge out evil from within.

You must not give in to him or even listen to him; do not feel sympathy for him or spare him or cover up for him.

Instead, you must kill him without fail! Your own hand must be the first to strike him, and then the hands of the whole community.

You must stone him to death because he tried to entice you away from the Lord your God, who delivered you from the land of Egypt, that place of slavery.

You must investigate thoroughly and inquire carefully. If it is indeed true that such a disgraceful thing is being done among you,

you must by all means slaughter the inhabitants of that city with the sword; annihilate with the sword everyone in it, as well as the livestock.

You must gather all of its plunder into the middle of the plaza and burn the city and all its plunder as a whole burnt offering to the Lord your God. It will be an abandoned ruin forever -- it must never be rebuilt again.

You must not take for yourself anything that has been placed under judgment. Then the Lord will relent from his intense anger, show you compassion, have mercy on you, and multiply you as he promised your ancestors.

Thus you must obey the Lord your God, keeping all his commandments that I am giving you today and doing what is right before him.

You must not eat any forbidden thing.

You must be certain to tithe all the produce of your seed that comes from the field year after year.

In the presence of the Lord your God you must eat from the tithe of your grain, your new wine, your olive oil, and the firstborn of your herds and flocks in the place he chooses to locate his name, so that you may learn to revere the Lord your God always.

As for the Levites in your villages, you must not ignore them, for they have no allotment or inheritance along with you.

At the end of every three years you must bring all the tithe of your produce, in that very year, and you must store it up in your villages.

At the end of every seven years you must declare a cancellation of debts.

This is the nature of the cancellation: Every creditor must remit what he has loaned to another person; he must not force payment from his fellow Israelite, for it is to be recognized as "the Lord's cancellation of debts."

You may exact payment from a foreigner, but whatever your fellow Israelite owes you, you must remit.

If a fellow Israelite from one of your villages in the land that the Lord your God is giving you should be poor, you must not harden your heart or be insensitive to his impoverished condition.

Instead, you must be sure to open your hand to him and generously lend him whatever he needs.

You must by all means lend to him and not be upset by doing it, for because of this the Lord your God will bless you in all your work and in everything you attempt.

If your fellow Hebrew -- whether male or female -- is sold to you and serves you for six years, then in the seventh year you must let that servant go free.

If you set them free, you must not send them away empty-handed.

You must supply them generously from your flock, your threshing floor, and your winepress -- as the Lord your God has blessed you, you must give to them.

You must set apart for the Lord your God every firstborn male born to your herds and flocks. You must not work the firstborn of your bulls or shear the firstborn of your flocks.

You and your household must eat them annually before the Lord your God in the place he chooses.

However, you must not eat its blood; you must pour it out on the ground like water.

You must sacrifice the Passover animal (from the flock or the herd) to the Lord your God in the place where he chooses to locate his name.

You must not eat any yeast with it; for seven days you must eat bread made without yeast, symbolic of affliction, for you came out of Egypt hurriedly. You must do this so you will remember for the rest of your life the day you came out of the land of Egypt.

There must not be a scrap of yeast within your land for seven days, nor can any of the meat you sacrifice on the evening of the first day remain until the next morning.

but you must sacrifice it in the evening in the place where he chooses to locate his name, at sunset, the time of day you came out of Egypt.

You must cook and eat it in the place the Lord your God chooses; you may return the next morning to your tents.

You must eat bread made without yeast for six days. The seventh day you are to hold an assembly for the Lord your God; you must not do any work on that day.

You must count seven weeks; you must begin to count them from the time you begin to harvest the standing grain.

You must celebrate the Festival of Temporary Shelters for seven days, at the time of the grain and grape harvest.

Three times a year all your males must appear before the Lord your God in the place he chooses for the Festival of Unleavened Bread, the Festival of Weeks, and the Festival of Temporary Shelters; and they must not appear before him empty-handed.

Every one of you must give as you are able, according to the blessing of the Lord your God that he has given you.

You must appoint judges and civil servants for each tribe in all your villages that the Lord your God is giving you, and they must judge the people fairly.

You must not pervert justice or show favor. Do not take a bribe, for bribes blind the eyes of the wise and distort the words of the righteous.

You must pursue justice alone so that you may live and inherit the land the Lord your God is giving you.

You must not plant any kind of tree as a sacred Asherah pole near the altar of the Lord your God which you build for yourself.

You must not erect a sacred pillar, a thing the Lord your God detests.

You must not sacrifice to him a bull or sheep that has a blemish or any other defect, because that is considered offensive to the Lord your God.

When it is reported to you and you hear about it, you must investigate carefully. If it is indeed true that such a disgraceful thing is being done in Israel,

you must bring to your city gates that man or woman who has done this wicked thing -- that very man or woman -- and you must stone that person to death.

At the testimony of two or three witnesses they must be executed. They cannot be put to death on the testimony of only one witness.

The witnesses must be first to begin the execution, and then all the people are to join in afterward. In this way you will purge evil from among you.

If a matter is too difficult for you to judge -- bloodshed, legal claim, or assault -- matters of controversy in your villages -- you must leave there and go up to the place the Lord your God chooses.

You must then do as they have determined at that place the Lord chooses. Be careful to do just as you are taught.

You must do what you are instructed, and the verdict they pronounce to you, without fail. Do not deviate right or left from what they tell you.

The person who pays no attention to the priest currently serving the Lord your God there, or to the verdict -- that person must die, so that you may purge evil from Israel.

you must select without fail a king whom the Lord your God chooses. From among your fellow citizens you must appoint a king -- you may not designate a foreigner who is not one of your fellow Israelites.